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Painting in Red
Reviewed by Paul Birchall
Playwrights Arena at Greenway Court Theatre
Through Nov. 9
Playwright Luis Alfaro’s latest drama is a (very) free adaptation of Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s tragic romance The Painter of His Own Dishonor, in which an obsessed artist realizes that his wife pines for another and kills her in a fit of rage.
Passion, jealousy, and rage, leading to a crime of passion that’s rendered in the stylized amplified emotion of Spanish tragedy – what’s not to like?
Calderon’s play took place in a world where the husband’s jealously murderous actions were not entirely disapproved of: Indeed, it even contains a coda in which the murderous husband is celebrated for the deed of defending his honor. Scholars have argued about the work’s anti-feminist – or ironic feminist – undertones for years.
Alfaro sets the story in present day Los Angeles, amongst a community of artists and intellectuals, mostly of Latino ethnicity. Handsome Echo Park artist Justin (Justin Huen) is a slacker LA artist who has just started making it big in the bohemian art world. Most of his works appear to be portraits of his beloved gallery curator wife Cristina (Cristina Frias), who, though she puts up a good front, is clearly getting bored with her husband. Justin knows this and is terrified that she will leave him, fears which he conveys to his best friend Rodney (Rodney To), a gay artist who has nursed his own crush on him since their Cal Arts school days.
One day, Cristina reveals that she was engaged to be married to someone else before she married Justin. The first lover, brooding musician West (West Liang) died in a shipwreck on their wedding eve. In an improbable turn of events, years later, he has now unexpectedly returned to reclaim his love. Even though Cristina swears to Justin that she no longer loves West, it’s obvious she still holds a torch for him, and this drives the hip young artist to the same timeless rage shared by Calderon’s cuckold.
Alfaro’s modern update to melting pot Los Angeles really should fit the play like a glove — and we can easily discern Alfero’s theme that our world may be modern, but the quagmire of emotions remain timeless. For many reasons, however, the production doesn’t hold together.
Director Jon Lawrence Rivera must bear some of the blame, as the staging emphasizes irrelevant and sometimes daffy gimmicks – images projected on upstage videoscreens, big gory rubber hearts, a mostly irrelevant appearance by an actress caparisoned like Olivia Newton John who warbles songs during the scene changes – over the work’s emotional points. But the core problem is that the play’s emotions just don’t ring true, even when the actors express them dutifully.
The playwright and director both strive to make the play’s setting and mood as hip as possible, peppering the dialogue with KCRW-audience friendly bon mots like “LACMA is the coffee table of the art world – an IKEA coffee table at that” or “two artists living in a loft – it’s like Big Brother!” The effect, though, is arch and self conscious, without supporting the passions that are meant to be lurking beneath the characters’ actions.
When the narrative elements kick in, they just seem under-motivated and almost ridiculous: The play just doesn’t make emotional sense and suffers from a peculiar lack of the very brooding, insane passion that is central to Calderon’s work. Performances are fast-paced, but strangely one dimensional – characters make big speeches about what they’re feeling, but what is felt is not shown in the acting. The result is a dry, inert production with dramatic energy erupting in all the wrong places.
Playwrights Arena at Greenway Court Theatre, 544 N. Fairfax Ave, LA; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through Nov. 9. (323) 655-7679.
